![\"Pitch](\"https:\/\/v-g.me.uk\/blog\/vgBTRImages\/T1090.jpg\" "\\"Pitch")
A 4-day eastern route through the Pumlumon hills of mid Wales.<\/p>\nA 4-day eastern route through the Pumlumon hills of mid Wales.<\/p>\n
This was planned as a 3-day trip but forcibly extended en route by an extra night due to misjudged effort, blistering heat and some atrocious, debilitating terrain.<\/p>\n
It approaches via a section of the Wye Valley Walk (WVW) to ascend Pumlumon Arwystli and continues northwards through the heart of the hills around Carnfachbugeilyn and Glaslyn.<\/p>\n
The route then heads westwards around Llyn Cwm-bwr and through the Esgair y Ffordd forest to ascend Foel Cerrigbrithion and traverse Bwlch Hyddgen, finally picking up Glyndwr's Way (GW) through the northern hills towards Machynlleth.<\/p>\n
The first day was a bank holiday Monday and the initial WVW section follows the main access track through the Sweet Lamb sports complex: we had visions of a hectic scene here with crowds milling around, but the whole area was eerily deserted, as were the hills beyond. We saw no other walkers at all until a solitary GW walker appeared near the end of day 3, our only sighting in the four days.<\/p>\n
The extra night meant scouting the phone mapping for a reasonable pitch spot, not easy on such a small screen in this area, but we found a good woodland one. As it turned out, it also meant that for a significant portion of that night, we were pitched in a dramatic thunderstorm.<\/p>\n
Recently several of my planned routes have been culled entirely or hacked apart to form shorter easier ones, even those designed only a couple of years ago but, evidently, I still sometimes think in the old ways and overestimate our capability relative to the route. This trip was highly instructive regarding food in this situation: stretching out the food to last another night and morning was a non-problem. In our exhausted state we could barely face the thought of eating anyway, only managing to force down a small amount and only because we knew we should.<\/p>\n